Darkening
by DesertDragon
Summary: Alone, CJ looks over some old pictures tucked away in his wallet. Mostly a background vignette on CJ.


"Darkening"   
By DesertDragon/Misty Rich   
DOTD fic: vignette / one-shot   
Rated PG-13 (some harsh language)   
Spoilers: only slight ones for "Dawn of the Dead" 2004.   
Summary: Possible unseen moment. Alone, CJ looks over some old pictures tucked away in his wallet. Mostly a background vignette on CJ. [I've tried to keep it canon and in context with what actor Michael Kelly has mentioned about the character.] 

For the moment, the parking garage was unusually quiet. No drills. No saws. No torches. The Crossroads shuttles sat half gutted in the dim glow of Basement Three's overhangs. CJ sat alone inside one of them, hunched over, his elbows on his jean-clad knees, staring out in a daze through the windowless skeleton. 

He and Michael had just removed all the Plexiglas and the armor siding would come next. That is, whenever the other's decided to drag their asses back down from Wooley's Diner. Yeah, it was late. But he wanted to get this the hell done. The last thing he wanted to do was waste time sitting around a bunch of stale food and listen to them wax rhapsodic over their current situation. 

He stared down at the bottle of water sitting between his legs, not really seeing it. If he allowed himself to close his eyes and think for half a second, he'd see Bart covered with those goddamn bastards. 

Or he might not. Fear was strange. The adrenaline censored a lot. And now, here he was, surviving amongst a group of people whom he hadn't given two shits about a couple of days ago. 

He took out his wallet and began to leaf through it. Most of everything in it was fucking useless now. Money. A credit card. A gym membership. An old condom. 

Shit. 

Ignoring this, his thumb inched along the brittle clear plastic of the picture sleeves that had long been tucked away. Until now, he hadn't bothered to look at the photographs since all this shit had gone down. 

The first one was worn and was of his father. It showed the old man how CJ liked to remember him best – out of uniform – sitting in a lawn chair in front of the house on 3rd street. He had quit carrying the picture from the Sheriffs Department. It had not invoked the greatest of memories, the least of which was his own attempt at applying with Racine County. He'd aced everything. Except the fucking psych. Problem with authority, they'd said. Tendency toward anti social behavior. 

Well. Fuck 'em. 

His father certainly wasn't around anymore to give a damn – he, and the house, were long gone. 

He was jerked out of his thoughts briefly by the hard clank of metal on metal somewhere nearby, and knew that Kenneth had resumed work on the other shuttle. Which meant the others would be back down soon. 

So much for having Crossroads all to himself. And in a period of a few back-breaking days, they'd be leaving it behind all together… 

Together. 

Now there was an ironic twist of fate. 

He'd spent so much time and effort keeping everyone, and everything, out of his space for so goddamn long – building his life around the job – taking pride in it – nobody hanging over his shoulder to tell him different – no one to care… or to be cared for – 

And then, in the space of mere days, that was all shot to hell. 

If only Racine County could see him now, the bastards. If getting things done meant working together with six or seven near-strangers, then so be it. He was smart enough to wise up to that simple fact, if not except it. 

Hell. He may still only care about saving his own ass, but he wasn't even sure he could call them strangers. Not anymore. 

That could either be, A: a good thing - he could probably trust Kenneth, Tucker, and even Michael at his back. 

Or, B: a bad thing… 

Which brought him to picture # 2. 

He wasn't sure why he still carried it. He supposed he didn't want to trash it. But it definitely didn't belong in his life anymore, either. Especially now. 

Several years old, the photograph was of a young blonde woman in her late twenties. Her smile was a little crooked as she gazed into the camera, hesitant, yet seemingly happy. The picture, itself, was slightly crooked as well – he had cut it out of a larger one some time ago so it could fit in the wallet. 

But something odd was creeping over him as he stared at it now. As if he'd never seen it before. He tried to shake it off, and couldn't. 

'Don't you realize what an ass you've been?' it seemed to say. But he was able to push that voice away; he'd had the practice, after all. It was why she left. 

No, the oddness poking at him was something else. Something new about the photo he hadn't realized before. It hovered at the back of his mind, waiting to hit him like a full-on train wreck. 

But it never came. Just the cold sensation of something dark passing over him, numbing all the things threatening to come up. It was an old hard shell he was all too familiar with; something he had created long ago. Hello, old friend. Good to see you're not letting shit get through at this critical juncture. 

As he heard other voices in the parking garage, he cursed and berated himself for loosing time. What the fuck was he doing? 

He stood, fumbling with his wallet, and reached for a tool belt as someone opened the shuttle door. 

He'd been expecting Michael, but it was Ana. He was even more surprised when her usually cool demeanor towards him broke briefly and she mumbled, "Hey." 

She was just reaching in to grab a hammer, and he gave her a slight nod of acknowledgment and turned away. He didn't see her reach down and pick up something on the grate floor. 

"What's this?" she asked idly. He glanced back down at her as he secured the belt around his waist. 

She was holding out the picture that somehow hadn't quite make it back into his wallet. 

"Nothing." He reached out to snatch it back, his oil-stained fingers barely curling around it, when the train wreck in his head suddenly decided to crash into him head on. 

Ana reminded him of the woman in the picture. 

Is that why he had pushed at her from the start - why his temper had flared so easily with her - and he hadn't even known it? It was as if he'd been protecting himself, for Christ's sake. What a crock of shit. Had that part inside him really dulled that much that it left him completely unaware? 

"Um," was all he had to hear her say to keep himself from crashing completely and bring him back to the present. Ana was standing there, her gaze on him, questioning and curious. "Nothing, huh?" her mouth caught between a half smile and something a twinge sadder. When he wouldn't answer her, she let the photograph go in his grasp and backed off, looking only slightly regretful for baiting him. 

He stared at her for a long moment, feeling slightly resigned to this revelation, and resenting it. As nonchalantly as he could, he finally replied, "Nope. Not a goddamn thing." 

She simply lifted an eyebrow at him, taking note of that soft bite of indifference in his voice, and walked away from the shuttle. "Okay." 

He watched her go; absently grabbing his goggles off of a hook of metal where he'd left them. He told himself that this really didn't change anything. It could be let it go and it would cease to matter, if it ever did at all. 

She'd go on being a little cool toward him despite the adrenaline-fueled camaraderie. And that was just fine with him. In fact, considering the survival rate these days, he wouldn't have it any other way. 

That hard, darkening shell around him said so. 

Without looking at the photo, he tucked it back away in his wallet, never to look at it again. 

fin   



End file.
